Contaminated polio vaccine threatens India’s polio-free status

The Indian drug regulator has ordered a probe in response to traces of polio type 2 virus reportedly being found in several batches of an oral polio vaccine. The tainted vaccine has put the country’s polio-free status at risk.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) formed a three-member committee to find out how and why a Ghaziabad-based pharmaceutical company, Bio-Med Pvt Ltd, released three batches containing 150,000 vials of polio vaccines with traces of type 2 strain.

The Drugs Controller General of India has directed the company to stop the “manufacture, sale or distribution of the vaccine till further orders,” the Press Trust of India reported.

“The company has five directors. While the managing director has been arrested, we have asked the police to trace the rest directors as they also need to be questioned,” a government official was quoted as saying in the report.